Millennial lesbians: we finally have justice. In the long-awaited “Mean Girls” remake, Janis Ian (played by Auli’i Cravalho) is an out and proud lesbian.
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Janis Ian is credited for a lot of 30-something’s sexual awakenings. So you can imagine our dismay when her storyline in the original “Mean Girls” culminated with her in a straight relationship. Janis (played by Lizzy Caplan) was rumored to be a lesbian but ends the film dating Kevin G.
“Previously, in our [2004] version, ‘lesbian’ for Janis was used kind of as a slur, and we’re taking that back,” Cravalho recently told ScreenRant. The new version of “Mean Girls” clearly characterizes Janis as a lesbian, though Regina George still teases her about it.
In the remake, Janis and Regina’s best friend breakup is attributed to a stuffed animal wearing a Pride pin. Janis had given it to Regina as a way of coming out to her, but Regina used the stuffed animal to make fun of Janis, setting it on fire in front of their science class.
The remake also reveals that Regina once kissed Janis during a game of “Spin the Bottle” and then proceeded to taunt Janis about it.
Bicon Reneé Rapp plays queen bee Regina George, and Rapp has said in interviews that she views her character as queer, though this has not been confirmed in the film.
Her and Megan Thee Stallion’s song “Not My Fault” is a play on a quote from the original movie: “It’s not my fault you’re, like, in love with me or something!” Not only is the song a bop, but some of the lyrics have the lesbians raising their eyebrows.
“It’s not my fault/ You came with her but she might leave with me.” In the second verse, Rapp sings, “Get her number, get her name/ Get a good thing while you can/ Kiss a blonde, kiss a friend/ Can a gay girl get an, ‘Amen?’”
Rapp has pushed the queer narrative for Regina from the beginning. She even shared a photo of herself from the Mean Girls press junket in December with the caption “Regina George was a lesbian.”
Janis and Regina fan fiction, anyone?
